President’s Award participants complete the final challenge for Gold

Six learners from Merensky High School, who are currently busy with the gold level of the President’s Award, completed their residential project from 27 April to 1 May at Tshega Christian Missions. They focused mainly on the Lighthouse Academy, a school in Fobeni village in the Bolubedo South area, as well as the people of the community.

The Plasies have painted classrooms and notice boards and started a vegetable garden as part of the feeding scheme for the school’s learners. In the five days they also made educational resources from mostly recycled material. This all form part of the requirements of the programme.

The participants stayed at Riverside Backpackers, with volunteers from Germany and Israel. The common goal for the weekend was to support and uplift the community of Fobeni. After each long day’s work, the Plasies had time to socialise with the volunteers and learned a lot about their countries and culture.

Merensky wishes to thank the parents of these learners for all the donations of educational resources, vegetable seedlings and pot plants which contributed to the success of this project.

Merensky would also like to thank the following people from Tshega Missions: Elani van Rooyen for all the arrangements since January; Bronwyn Holtzhauzen, who made sure the learners kept to the programme; Phumi Zondo and Cosmas Gamo, who acted as mentors for the Plasies, and Jackie van Tonder, the house master, who ensured a homely atmosphere and warm food daily at the Backpackers.